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Originally Posted by Maranello  ...for a Black person to have qualified as an engineer indicates an ability and aptitude far in excess of the norm - he wouldn't just be twice as clever as the white guy to get where he is, but also twice as tenacious, hard-working and perseverant, attributes that all employers value - degrees and grades only get you so far, it is your aptitude and attitude that count for a lot more in the "real world". |
Okay, it's a perfectly valid reason to hire someone with slightly worse grades on the basis of attitude, perseverance, etc. But there's a difference between hiring someone for these qualities and hiring them simply because they're black (or non-white). I'm sure that it's not just a problem that exists in South Africa, but it is what's happening when the selection criteria mandates that 6 out of 14 players be non-white, when they're not meriting their places.
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The fuss is that a lot of pampered, over-indulged white South Africans now, for the first time in their existence, have to deal with a playing field that is only marginally tilted in their favour (its still NOT a level playing field), and as they are not used to competition, they cannot handle it.
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With all due respect, it sounds like you might have some biases of your own. A whole branch of my family (in fact, almost all on my father's side) is South African, and I don't recall any of them supporting Apartheid. In fact, I think white South Africans the world over get a bad rap. There seems to be this attitude that because they're white and South African, automatically they must be racists. I'm not accusing you of that attitude, Maranello, but it exists- not least among African dictators who use the injustices of colonialism to justify their own racism.